Umbrella for UCBs: Marathe addresses cooperators in Belgaum

Belgaum District Urban Cooperative Bank Association organized a conference of Chairmen, Directors and CEOs of Urban Cooperative Banks of Belgaum district at Chhatrapati Shivaji Auditorium at Belgaum last week, in which RBI’s Central Board director and veteran cooperator Satish Marathe was the chief guest.

Speaking on the occasion Satish Marathe expressed his views on Board of Management (BoM) and Umbrella organization for cooperative banks.

Sharing the salient points of Marathe’s speech, Ravikiran V Dhuraji, CEO of Maratha Urban Cooperative Bank told this correspondent “Marathe stressed on the RBI draft guidelines on constituting BoM in addition to the board of directors for UCBs. RBI does not have the direct power to control the board of UCBs because of dual control – the administration being regulated by RCS and the finances by RBI”, he added.

“RBI has not been providing licenses for opening new UCBs for the past 20 years. There are about 1,561 UCBs across India and around 52,000 UCBs across the world.It is difficult for Small UCBs to have BoM because they are not capable to affording high salaries of experts, Marathe suggested amending the Banking Regulation Act, 1949”.

He further informed the participants the report on the Umbrella Organization submitted to RBI by V.S.Das former ED, RBI is under consideration. The Umbrella Organization will strengthen cooperative solidarity. National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) has pledged Rs 200 crore for the proposed organization.

Marathe further stressed on the need of adopting modern technology by UCBs.

Later , sharing the details Marathe wrote on his Facebook wall, “Addressed Conference of Chairmen, Directors & CEOs of UCBs of Belgaum Dist venue being the Auditorium of 75 years old Maratha Urban CoOp Bank Ltd( MUCBL).”

“The Conference which was attended by over 200 Bankers was organized by District Association of UCBs. Sh Balasaheb Kakatkar, V Chairman of the Dist Association and Director of Ktaka State UCBs Federation played the Key role in the successful organization of the Conference”, he added.

About 200 delegates representing 32 UCBs of Belgaum participated in the conference. There are 34 UCBs in Belgaum district but only 2 banks could not attend the event.